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Swanson: Galaxy lucky to have fans turning up the heat

April 15, 2023

Galaxy fans express their displeasure for Galaxy president Chris Klein before a recent game outside Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson. (Photo by Mirjam Swanson)

A small number of soccer fans sit in the L.A. Riot Squad supporter group section prior to the start of the Galaxy’s season opener on March 18, 2023, at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson. The Riot Squad, along with four other Galaxy supporter groups, are boycotting game attendance in part due to a contract extension given to team president Chris Klein. (Photo by Raul Romero Jr., Contributing Photographer)

Galaxy midfielder Gastón Brugman controls the ball in front of a half-empty Angel City Brigade supporters group section during the second half of an MLS match earlier this month at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson. The Angel City Brigade, along with four other Galaxy supporter groups, are boycotting game attendance in part due to a contract extension given to team president Chris Klein. (Photo by Raul Romero Jr., Contributing Photographer)

Galaxy fans express their displeasure for Galaxy president Chris Klein before a recent game outside Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson. (Photo by Mirjam Swanson)

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CARSON — The Galaxy is lucky to have such distraught fans.

To have people so committed to showing up and … not showing up: Many of the iconic MLS team’s most devoted supporters have, for the first two home games this season, gathered outside Dignity Health Sports Park to protest. Their beloved soccer franchise has faded over the past few years, and they hold president Chris Klein and technical director Jovan Kirovski responsible.

Since Coach Bruce Arena left in 2017, the Galaxy has churned through coaches, lost more games than it has won and made the playoffs just twice. That, after having earned eight consecutive playoff appearances and won three MLS Cups and two Supporters’ Shields in the period prior.

This season, the team is 0-3-3 and limping into Sunday’s match against LAFC, the first against its crosstown rivals (7-1-2 in all competitions) since LAFC won the MLS title last season.

Usually, when a team loses games, loses luster, it loses fans. Interest dips because folks are fickle and would rather find a fun way to spend their free time. It’s the natural order of things – unless you’re lucky enough to have people who just won’t quit you.

And these Galaxy supporters couldn’t care more.

So they can’t stay away. But they can’t go in either.

“The Galaxy is everything, and I can’t wait to be back,” said a masked supporter named Kevin, who, like the other protesters I met before a loss to the Seattle Sounders on April 1, declined to give his full name. “But I am ready to sit out the season as well until we make the change and we have a little bit more clarification and communication and know exactly the way this club is heading.”

“What we’re demanding of them is accountability,” a young man named Izzy said. “If I were bad at my job, I would get fired – this man got promotions!”

It all reminded me of a public comment period at a contentious City Council meeting, when a hot-button issue arises and gets constituents all fired up.

Those comments can be a little nebulous and a lot biased. Sometimes they lack context. Sometimes they’re on the money.

But they almost always come from a place of genuine care and concern, delivered by people passionate enough about something that they’ve taken time on a work night to look up where the City Council even meets so they can go down and speak up about whatever is on their minds.

And what good mayors do when a prickly communal debate arises is type out an open letter to concerned residents promising – wait, no. That’s not right.

What they do is show up and listen. Sit and absorb criticism, uncomfortable as it must be. Because it’s always good when people pay attention and participate in the democratic process.

And, no, pro sports isn’t a democracy, and fans don’t get a vote. Except, of course, with their dollars – and many of the protesters outside the stadium already paid for season tickets they don’t expect to use.

So too had a lot of the hardcore fans inside. That was one reason they were watching live and not off-site with the supporters who’ve sworn off attending home games – the first two of which, by the way, attracted relatively robust, if less-festive crowds of around 20,000.

But there were other reasons – none sympathetic to the front office – for boycotting the boycott.

There’s the matter of supporting the team on the pitch: “I feel bad for the players,” said Brian Abrego, who stood in the sparsely populated supporters’ section, quietly watching the Galaxy lose 2-1 to Seattle.

Carlos Montana said when he suggested 15-minute walk-outs instead, he felt like he was “roasted” for it. And Gerson Diaz said he initially supported the boycott – until he saw someone who was planning to do so buying a Galaxy jersey: “I was like, ‘Wait, that makes no sense.’”

There was even a difference in how those inside the stadium and those outside discussed the team’s issues.

Inside, they griped about roster construction: “We have quality players, but it’s just not assembled correctly,” Abrego said.

Outside, the critique was more existential: “It’s not because we’re upset we don’t have any wingers,” Gloria J. said. “We talked about better communication … and there’s always going to be that gray area, nothing’s going to be black and white, but I do appreciate a little gray sometimes.”

Going into this weekend, though, inside or out, it is black and white: No one is happy.

You could read it in Klein’s open letter this week: “I believe in what we are building and in the people who are building it. However, if we fall short of our goals this year, I will step aside as the President of the club that I so dearly love.”

Open letter from Chris Klein to the @LAGalaxy season ticket members.
Is this enough #lagalaxy fam? Reactions? #mls pic.twitter.com/wbevcqFIHU

— El Escudero de LA (@ElEscuderoDeLA) April 11, 2023

And in the rebuttal from L.A. Riot Squad president Andrew Alesana: “They say ‘if you love something let it go.’ I believe, for you, that time is now. Your leadership has been ineffective, and has created a Galaxy organization that lacks transparency, with no clear vision …”

An open letter. pic.twitter.com/tOYV4VfITs

— LA Riot Squad (@LARiotSquad) April 12, 2023

You could feel it too in Coach Greg Vanney’s response during a scrum with reporters: “The most important thing is get rid of the noise. Don’t care what anybody thinks. Don’t care what anybody says, don’t honestly care who shows up in the stadium.”

Greg Vanney talks about context of the season so far …the upset supporters and bad situation overall at the #LAGalaxy pic.twitter.com/UCRFokdZOK

— Eduard Cauich (@ecauich) April 13, 2023

They really should care who shows up, though.

Remember in 2011, late in Frank McCourt’s dispiriting tenure as Dodgers owner, when there was a 21% decline in home attendance and the club drew fewer than 3 million fans for the first time in a non-strike season since 1992?

That active apathy was punctuated by true-blue fanatics like Roger Arrieta, who organized a pair of anti-McCourt protests.

“You love them so much you want to fix the problem, even though you’re not an owner and you’re not in the front office or any of that stuff. So you think, ‘How can I take it upon myself to fix this?’” Arrieta said by phone this week. “It’s like if a family member, a brother or sister, is in trouble. You’ll do whatever you can to help them out.”

Those efforts at intervention, organized and organic, helped lead to the embattled owner finally selling the team.

Whether the Galaxy should acquiesce to protesters’ demands, I don’t know. But they better appreciate those fans making them squirm, respect the power of these people applying the pressure, and then proceed from there.

Because they’re lucky to have them. Fair-weather fans, regular fickle folk, they would’ve faded away by now. Or maybe switched sides.

Klein Out Protest by LA Galaxy Supporter Groups/Fans #LAGalaxy #mls #barras #ultras #hinchas #kleinout pic.twitter.com/X8xXGfDQoX

— Ultras Barras Usa (@UltrasBarrasUsa) February 5, 2023

Orange County Register

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Swanson: Galaxy lucky to have fans turning up the heat

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